


Thawing Out

by orangeCrates



Series: What It Means to Be Warm [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed, Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:22:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeCrates/pseuds/orangeCrates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Altair wakes up far in the future in a world full of people and places he does not recognize. Just as he seems to get his feet under him, he finds a familiar face he hadn't expected to see ever again.</p><p>Except Malik doesn't recognize him or even remember his own name.</p><p>A Winter Soldier AU where Altair was frozen since the Middle Ages and defrosted by Assassins. Malik is found by Templars and brainwashed. Inspired by a Tumblr post.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thawing Out

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the idea goes to starsandstark @ Tumblr! Their original post can be found [here.](http://starsandstark.tumblr.com/post/94357946160/wait-imagine-a-winter-soldier-au-with-altair-and)
> 
> Also, of course I'd be inspired in a week when I have a lot of homework. Of course.

_He woke up to a room that was entirely too white and sterile and bright to be anything close to comforting. The men around him dressed in white coats with foreign words spilling from their mouths, speaking in fast and excited tones as they poked and prodded him did little to improve the mounting unease he felt._

_"Where am I?" He asked, his English awkward and accented because it was not his mother-tongue but he knows they understand because they look at him in surprise, as if they'd just witnessed an animal performing a particularly clever trick. He repeated the question with a snarl, tugs at the leather straps holding him down to a table as cold as the light in the doctors eyes. They chatter amongst themselves, words too fast for him to do more than catch a few familiar words._

_The one of them turns to him and he does not flicn when the doctor prods him and says, "He will do."_

~ + ~

The world Altair wakes up to is unfamiliar, full of entirely too much noise and people and bright lights. (Even at night there is no break from this as people and the city remains awake as if sleep were a foreign concept, lit with so many brightly coloured lights that it blots out the stars.)

He throws himself into the rhythm of life in this place and time that is so far removed from his own that describing the distance in between as a gulf is still an underestimation. There is an entire ocean between him and Masyaf and the distance is only compounded by the fact that he also finds himself thousands of years in the future, and if he allows himself to stagnate it will overwhelm him (the fact that everyone he's loved is dead, that the places he grew up in have been either irrevocably changed or in ruins if they exist at all).

Altair throws himself at the future, but he for all that he never stops trying to learn everything all at once he never neglects to remember.

He fills a sketch book they give him with sketches of the things he left behind. Pages upon pages of people and places, things and memories. Everything he can remember and some he cannot as clearly. Some he scratches out because it does the real thing no justice and others he has to fight the urge to run a hand over the lines and risk ruining them. And, even though he is told there are lined paper for writing (and they are surprised at how impressed he is by that. Like slicing bread, lining paper tended to be something done by hand. That pre-lined paper and sliced bread were things that could exist, and, for that matter, not need the precise hand of a huamn being behind their creation was novel), he writes his thoughts in there as well. Observations of what he sees and reminiscients about the memories that do not translate well into drawings.

As such, he's filled the first sketchbook before he'd figured out how to drive without causing his passenger to exit the vehicle looking sick and having to sit on the pavement for a while until they feel safe again.

By the time he's deemed ready to go on missions (not that they ever doubted his abilities, but there is more to being an Assassin than simply killing the target), Altair's already filled another. But the longer he's here, the fewer things there are to draw, to remember. It does not feel right, that he should have lived for most of his life in what people now know as the Crusades era, and yet have so little to remember. But that place in his memories is now static. The people and places he'd known are not here to create new memories so it only makes sense that eventually he would run out of new things to put to paper.

It did not mean he stopped. Because he still draws and writes about the past, but it is also interspersed with things from the future (he has no idea when the present should be. Is it the time you are in or the time where you feel you belong?), drawings and notes about the people and places he learns more about everyday.

Sometimes he wondered what Malik would think if he were here.

Altair stares at the sketch for a moment. It is of Malik, wearing one of his rare smiles. It is an expression that Altair never feels he truly manages to capture. He taps the pencil against the page for a moment before writing in the corner in Arabic.

_I wish you were here, brother._

~ + ~

_In the darker moments he almost wished himself dead...back when he could still wish at all._

_They did not allow him freedom to move, not after he'd broken a man's arm (they were easily broken things, arms, if you knew where to apply the pressure. Violence had never bothered him but the increasing ease with which he chose to employ it _did_ ) but he is not without his ways._

_Still, it had seemed too much like giving up and he, instead, (foolishly) chose to fight._

_He clung to his memories even as they systematically ripped them from him, one after another._

_In the early days he tried to hold onto everything. When that failed he tried holding onto the few things that truly mattered._

_The Creed. Kadar._ Altair _._

 _But even those began to slip away and, near the end, he'd forgotten all but a name. A word, really, because he no longer knew it was a name, only that it was important to hold onto it. He was no longer able to recall why, only that it_ was _._

_Altair._

_He repeated it over and over in his head even as he screamed and screamed as they tore through his mind, cleansing every corner of who he was so they could make him into what they wanted._

_Altair Altair Altair Altair Altair_

_He repeated it until every repetition blurred into one long line of sound, until it was nothing but a meaningless string of jibberish and continued until even that much was taken away._

~ + ~

Even after Malik had forgiven him, it had been a long time before Altair had managed to forgive himself.

In the days following Al Mualim's betray and subsequent death, when he was exhausted by the work of rebuilding, he sometimes found himself wondering how it could have been so easy for Malik to forgive and whether or not he may one day look upon Altair again with hate and anger burning in his eyes.

Back than, Altair had thought such a thing would be unbearable.

Now he would have gladly taken the anger over the blank look in Malik's eyes (as if Altair were nothing) when he'd ripped the mask off his assailant.

_"Who the hell is Malik?"_

Altair shut his eyes where he sat on a bench, hands loosely laced together between his knees and remained unmoving until the door opposite to him creaked open. A novice stood there (and Altair could have picked him out as a novice despite the modern assassins having abandoned the practice of dressing them in greys. It's in the posture, the way they wear the quiet commanding prescence of a full assassin like an ill-fitted robe), looking nervous. In the years before he'd been encased in ice, he would sometimes spare a smile for the novices.

Today he has none to spare for anyone and his expression remains grim and determined ( _dangerous_ Malik had once remarked) as he stands even before the novice has finished telling him he could go into the room.

~ + ~

_\--every time they take him out of cryostatis is like waking up for the first time._

_They perform maintenance on him (his arm, his head) and when they are certain he is performing optimally, they give him his orders and he performs them without hesitation. It doesn't matter who the target is, they give him a name, a face, a location and he leaves behind a dead body and a trail colder than ice._

_When he returns they clean the blood off him, push him into a machine and he screams and screams until they deem whatever problem had arisen solved then they put him back into cryostasis before he'd even finished shaking. Then everything goes blessedly blank and--_

_\--every time they take him out of cryostatis is like waking up for the first time._

~ + ~

"Are you out of your mind?"

It does not surprise Altair at all that Desmond is the first to come to him in the practice area or that he looks as angry as he does.

"You can't kill him!"

Altair wipes the sweat from his forehead and actually turns to look at Desmond because Desmond of everyone understands. He'd relieved Altair's memories in what he's been told is called an Animus, had seen Altair at his lowest and walked his road to redepmtion with him. It was Desmond who had seen what had happened to Altair and been the one to find where his ancestor had been frozen.

"And I won't."

"Bullshit." Desmond hisses because while he is not in love with Malik he still felt echoes of Altair's regard and it bled over into how he felt about a man he had technically never met. "You told them--"

"I told them I would kill him if I could not save him." He interrupts and lets that sink in for a moment as he drags a towel over his face. He wonders, idly, where Desmond had gotten this information that only a handful should be privvy to. Then again, assassins tended to gossip, didn't they? (It seems somethings never changed.) "I do not intend to fail."

~ + ~

_Confusion was no longer a feeling he was familiar with but the fact that he could not give name to what he was feeling only unsettled him more._

_He did not complain as they buckled him into the chair, did not react to the words that passed over his head, an assessment about his current state that did not seem at all important._

_"Who was that man?"_

_He asked and didn't know why he did or why the scientists stopped to give him a look. He flexed his fingers subconciously._

_"He's no one."_

_And he knows that couldn't be right because..._

_"I know him."_

_There is a sort of certainty to the words that he hadn't expected, that he hadn't felt (hadn't needed to feel when he only needs to kill when commanded) in a long time and the moment he said them he knew it to be true._

_"I know him." He repeated just to hear the words, and there's an almost childlike wonder in his voice, something amazed and lost all at once even as his expression betrayed nothing._

_The scientists share a look amongst themselves that he didn't see as he tried to_ think _as the assistants finish adjusting the straps on his arms. Then they flip a switch and the last thing he remembers were golden eyes before white hot pain washes everything away._

~ + ~

If Altair had been a soldier he would have waited, perhaps, for Malik to show himself again.

But he is an _Assassin_ and the only time they wait for prey is when they wait for it to fall into their traps.

And Altair has never had the patience or the right ming-set for baiting and trapping.

They find the centre where they think Malik might be (Rebecca is sure and Shaun is skeptical and Altair is grateful to them both even though he suspects they're doing it as a favour to Desmond). It had taken them longer than Altair would have preferred, but it is not so easy to uncover the location of a man who, for all intents and purposes, should not exist.

Infiltration is not difficult, different in some ways to what he's used to but the theory behind it has changed little. It is a matter of understanding from where to enter and where the blind spots would be. They don't know Malik's exact location, but it's easy enough to spot a flash of gold in a world that is grey to his Eagle Vision.

The scientist he stalks leads him to a door with two guards posted at each side. He uses a mirror to watch the scientist around the corner before slipping it back into a pocket, he waits for the sound of the door sliding shut then turns the corner, seemingly going from a standstill to a full run in no time at all. Altair slits the guard's throats before they could scream. He takes the guard's keycard (similar in appearance to the one the scientist used) and it gives him access t the room.

He catches part of a conversation including the words, 'out lived his usefulness' before one of the two scientists in the room looks up at the door opening and screams. Between them, strapped to some sort of device, Malik does not even stir.

"Assassin!"

There is counter between Altair and the scientists, this he jumps off of and lands on one man, burying his hidden blade into his throat. He straightens to turn to the second one who's run off. He expects the man to raise an alarm. He did not expect (should have expected) the man to slap his hand over a button, releasing the restraints on Malik.

"Kill him!" He manges before the words die off in a gurgle when a throwing knife kills him. Altair has a gun on him, had been traine to use one but old habits die hard.

It is instinct that makes him turning, barely in time duck under the blow Malik throws, bare handed but with a fist made of metal.

And they fight.

They'd fought in the past, but never with any real intent to kill each other. But Altair knows without a doubt that Malik would kill him if given the chance and that thought is as disturbing as the blank look in Malik's eyes.

"Malik, stop!"

~ + ~

_He wakes up again to the snap of the restraints opening._

_The verbal order is unnecessary because he still has his orders from before: kill the assassin._

_He holds nothing back, going after the assassin with the gold eyes with every intent to complete his mission. It does no usually take this long to kill a man, but the assassin parries every one of his blows though the assassin does not take the chance to run him through.._

_Their fight drags on and, as it is with these things, it is settled over a misstep, a pen that had rolled onto the floor that he didn't see and then the assassin has him on his back, blade poised to strike a killing blow...then hesitates. In his right mind, he may have wondered about that, but all he does now is take advantage of it and flip them over with his hands on the assassin's neck._

_His fingers start to tighten and he expects a fight, steels himself for one. But instead he finds a hand on his cheek and it makes him jerk back._

_"Malik."_

_The name means nothing to him, but he can't help the niggling feeling that he should._

_(Amber eyes. He remembers...something about those eyes.)_

_A thumb brushes over his cheek and even though he's the one with hands around the other man's throat it feels like he's the one who couldn't breathe suddenly._

_"We are one. As we share the glory of our victories, so too should we share the pain of our defeat." The words spilling from the assassin's mouth make as much sense as anything else (which is to say, none at all) but while he can't pick out a meaning, he remembers the scent of incense. His fingers tighten, but could not bring him to cut off the words as something fought against the desire to carry out his mission. The lights suddenly begin to flash red as the alarm goes off, but the assassin only speaks louder to be heard over the cacophany, "In this way we grow closer." The hand on his cheek moves behind his neck, tries to tug him down even as he locks his arms to stop from going with it, "We grow stronger."_

_He hears the door to the lab open and he needs to kill the assassin now. He must complete his mission._

_Except he finds himself sitting back and standing up, finds himself dragging the assassin with him behind an overturned table to take shelter from shots being fired at them._

_He didn't know why he did it and even as he pulled the assassin close he couldn't figure it out. Unbidden, words (like the scent of incense and ink) floated to the forefront of his mind and he has no idea where it came from._

_Nothing is true._

_And he didn't know if he'd spoken them out loud or only thought them, but the assassin pulls back with a wide smirk and victory in his eyes as he framed his face with both hands and whispered back._

_"Everything is permitted." And it is just meaningless words and yet...and yet they were so familiar. He closes his eyes for a moment, against a budding migraine and the world seems to tilt on its axis even though he hasn't moved at all--_

\--and the ceiling when he opens his eyes is white. His prosthetic is missing and he finds himself restrained to the hospital bed. He tugs at the restraint on his arm and considers the possibility of escape and the logistics of dislocating his thumb in conjunction with it.

But his plans are interrupted when a face leans over his, amber eyes full of tentative hope.

"Malik?"

In response, his own face twists in confusion. There's something familiar about that face, about those eyes. He blinks, tires to think through the fog in his head even as the man hovering over him seems to shrink in on himself as the silence stretches on.

His fingers twitch where his arm is restrained to the bed before he speaks, voice dry from disuse.

"Altair?"

Something eases in the face above his (Altair's face) and, like with before the moment the words leave his lips he knows what they are, what they mean, even before Altair leans in closer, eyes suspiciously bright.

"Yes. I'm here." And Altair moves to sit on the edge of bed, leans over so they could look at each other straight on, "I'm here."

He flounders for a moment, not even realizing he'd attempted to reach for Altair until he pulled against the restraint. He pulls at it again, more purposefully, and when that didn't help, turned his hand with a grunt to try again until he feels Altair's palm settle over his. His fingers twitch again before they curl in a tight grip that couldn't be anything but painful.

"You're safe, Malik." Altair says and he still has no idea who Malik is.

~ + ~

The easy part was convincing them to let Malik live.

Convincing them to allow him to go free was harder mostly because in cases like these there was no telling how deep the brainwashing went, and whether or not Malik would wake up one night and try to kill Altair without knowing what he was doing.

In the end, he let Malik choose, because he had been denied that right for too long and Altair will not take this choice from him. Malik agrees and Altair knows part of it is because he wants to remember and part of it was trust, the belief that Altair would allow no harm to come to him. And he feels woefully undeserving of that when Altair had left him to rot with Abstergo.

It is only after that that the hardest part truly began.

"I had a brother." Malik brings up without preamble, the way he tends to do when some missing piece of his memory returns, but with his brows furrowed in such a way that Altair knows whatever he's remembered doesn't connect with anything (like a piece of a puzzle but it belongs to the part of the picture that is a single colour, a piece of a cloudless sky when the border's barely been put together and there's no indication of where it goes).

"Yes." Altair answers even though it hadn't been phrased as a question and watches tension ease out of Malik's shoulders at the confirmation that he was right, "His name was Kadar Al-Sayf."

He does not add anymore details because Malik must try to remember as much as he can on his own. Malik bites his lip and stares at the floor for a moment, hand clenched in frustration and Altair already knows he won't remember though he will try.

On the worse days, Malik will go into a rage, so frustrated by the things he can't get back, the things he's lost that he can't count the things he has back, seeing only the gaps in the puzzle instead of the picture he's begun to piece back together. Altair does not, _would not_ begrudge him his anger, but hated the self-directed slant to it, hated that Malik would as soon blame himself especially in the early days, for something he was a victim of.

Today is one of the better days, however, because Malik only sighs and sits back, leaning against the headboard of the bed.

He sounds tired and disappointed when he admits, "I can't remember." And Altair waits for him to elaborate because he clearly remembers _something_. "I only remember that I had a brother." 

There's a wistful note to his voice that leads Altair to suspect he remembers a little more than that (at the very least that he'd loved his brother), but he doesn' comment on it, only asks, "do you want me to show you what he looked like?"

And Malik turned his head to look at Altair and nodded.

"Please."

Altair pulls his sketchbook from where he'd left it on a nearby table, flips to a new page and taps the end of the pencil a few times before he starts. Over the cource of the weeks he's done this a few times, finding himself remembering more things than before as Malik asks for them. He sketches Kadar from memory, hazy as it was, and when he feels he's gotten it as accurate as he could he hands it to Malik without a word.

Malik takes the sketchbook and drawshis knees up. He leans it on his thighs, like a canvas on an easel and draws a finger over the line of Kadar's face, smudging some of the graphite onto his finger tips as he stares at the sketch thoughtfully.

"Blue." Malik says suddenly, "His eyes...they were blue, weren't they?" Even as he asks he looks at Altair with something not unlike triumph in his eyes. Because Malik never asks if he's unsure, only when he's convinced that the answer will not be 'no' and it happens more and more often.

They are always small victories but nothing gives Altair hope quite like when he can lean over in these moments and tell him, 'yes'.

~ + ~

Altair tells him he will be able to leave the compound soon.

They're making progress enough that they feel like they can allow him this.

"Soon," Altair says and for all that he tries to act reserved, he cannot hide the excitement the prospect brings. Sometimes he tells Malik about the places he knows, of the apartment he rents and the places he's visted. Places he will take Malik when he is well enough to leave this place.

Malik has, technically spent more time in this time than Altair has, but he hadn't had to time to really take anything in (moving from one target to another when he wasn't put in cryostasis). So it is all, in its own way, new and interesting. And it is...good, to think about the future, to think about _having_ a future. It brings a normalcy to his life that he needs increasingly as he remembers more and more of who he is supposed to be.

He's improving day by day...but there are still bad days.

Malik sucks in a breath, stopping in the door way when Altair who entered first steps to the side. On the table is the prosthetic they'd taken from him when he arrived.

The woman (Rebecca, he's told), talks about the improvements she'd added and how they've deemed it safe enough to give it back to him, but he doesn't hear a word.

He stares at the arm, remembers its weight and how he could move it as easily as if it were made of flesh (remembers the gurgle of the dying as he slit their throats and the way he could not feel the warm trail of blood that dripped down and over the ridges in the metal).

"No." He says, then repeats with more vehemence and doesn't care when they look at him warily, " _No._ "

Altair reacts first, moves over and pulls Malik towards him and to the side (not towards the table or the arm). He nods at the other two in the room and tells them to leave them for a moment and Malik clings to his shirt, breathing ragged as he shuts his eyes so hard he saw flashes behind his eyelids.

"I don't want it." He hisses when the door closes and he feels Altair's hand on his back. Because he would rather be a one-armed cripple (Dai of Jerusalem, _Assassin_ ) than a monster (murderer, a Templar _dog_ ).

And more than that, he wanted to stop being this in-between _thing_ trembling in Altair's arms with a mind full of holes and gaps that he can never seem to ever fill.

He is not a man used to being for a loss for words, but on some days his mind becomes so jumbled that words do not come easily. It helps then, that Altair still understands him best.

"The arm does not change who you are." He says quietly but firmly into Malik's ear.

Malik laughs, a harsh sound. "And who is that?" Because he hasn't known, hasn't _needed_ to know for years and no matter how he tries he can't seem to fit himself back into the person that he was after all this time. He pulls back enough to look Altair in the eye and hisses, "Tell me who I am, Altair."

"You are Malik Al-Sayf." He says without any hesitation, without pity and it grounds Malik, steadies him like an anchor even as he shakes his head.

"I do not even know who that is anymore."

Altair leans in to press their foreheads together, "You'll figure it out."

~ + ~

A few weeks later finds Altair checking his weapons as he prepares for a mission.

Malik finds him the same way, though with him there is a great deal more frowning involved.

"It is true then." Altair does not jump because Malik had made sure not to enter without making some small noise to announce his prescence. "You are leaving."

"I will return." He assures as he checks the gun in his hand before holstering it. "It is a simple mission."

Malik snorts, a familiar and derisive sound Altair remembers from centuries in the past. "It cannot be simple if they are sending _you_." And he waves his hand dissmissively, "and even if it _were_ the moment they send you it is assured that it will not remain simple for long."

Altair ducks his head to hide a smirk as he inspects one of the knives he will be taking, testing its edge. 

Malik watches him for a moment before speaking again.

"You are going alone." It is a statement and, as is becoming more and more common, not one that Altair needs to confirm.

"There are none with the right sort of skills."

Malik frowns because he's seen the state of the Assassins in this age and what little he has seen hasn't been promising.

"They send you because there is no one else."

"There are others."

But none with Altair's level of skill, none who even come close enough to be anything more than a burden.

They say nothing else until Altair slips on the hidden blade and turns to leave. There is a thoughtful look on Malik's face that Altair doesn't know entirely what to make of, but Malik waves off his concern.

"Just focus on your mission." Then, "Safety and peace, Altair."

"To you as well."

~ + ~

Altair is gone for exactly two weeks and three days.

During that time Desmond would visit in his place (they had had to explain about the whole debacle with the Animus to him), but otherwise Malik is left alone with his thoughts.

He does not worry because Altair has and always will be like a force of nature. There is no one in this world with the skills Altair does and Malik never once doubts he would return alive.

But his pride does not take being idle well. When he'd lost his arm he had been Dai of Jerusalem and while those memories were missing bits and pieces, he remembers working, always working for the good of the Order. Here he is nothing, not an assassin or a bureau leader but a liability. A week before Altair returned, Malik comes to a decision.

He leaves his rooms, tilts his head up because he is always under surveillance and says simply that he would like his arm back now.

Altair's face is unreadable when he returns to find Malik waiting for him, with both arms even if one was covered both by the long sleevs he wore and a single black leather glove he wore over it. After the customary greeting of 'safety and peace' he fingers the edge of Malik's sleeve, exposing a dull flash of metal and Malik fights the urge to yank it back down.

"This all right with you?" He asks carefully to which Malik nods.

"Yes." Then he smirks, "Someone has to watch your back when you go out. God knows you seem to think yourself invincible sometimes."

~ + ~

Altair had a cot moved in to Malik's room, because some nights Malik is visted by nightmares so intense that he thrashes in his sleep and will attack anyone who tries to touch him.

The trick is to catch it early, before it gets to that point.

Altair has gotten used to waking up at the slightest disturbance, the slightest sound of distress that precludes these nightmares. When they happen, he'll rise from his cot and put a hand on Malik's shoulder. It's a gentle touch, but Malik jerks awake as if it were more, sitting up with his hands clenching onto the sheets tightly, breathing hard. In the beginning he would wake up screaming, but it happens less and less as time goes by.

Now he just turns to stare at Altair, releases the sheets only to take hold of one of Altair's hands in a deathgrip as Altair pulls him close and he reminds Malik that he's safe, that he's no longer in that lab and he never will be again (and Malik closes his eyes and reminds himself that it's true, that this is real).

~ + ~

He is not nervous, Malik reminds himself as he adjusts the strap of his bag for what felt like the hundredth time.

He has not seen the world outside of the compound for months before he was deemed safe enough to leave. It is not the longest he's been kept indoors, but it's the longest stretch of time he's been aware and lucid since awakening in this strange new world.

Malik has been both looking forward to and anxious about the whole matter since they told him he could leave.

And now that it's here it doesn't seem quite real.

"Ready to go?" Altair asks, sounding entirely too amused so Malik glares half-heartedly at him. The ass only chuckles and adds, "We could wait a little longer if you need it."

For that, Malik kicks him in the shin (though the action carries no real heat or violent intent even if it was meant to sting) and doesn't deign to respond except to say, "let's go."

He is not nervous, not with Altair walking at his side, making uneccessary comments about the things they pass and the foods Malik needs to try.

He's standing in the room Altair had set aside in his apartment for him (it is fully furnished and ready for him to move in, and Malik wonders if it had come that way or if Altair has just been waiting for him to come home for a while now), when he turns to Altair and thanks him.

(For everything.)

~ + ~

There will always be gaps in Malik's memories.

That is what they told him, told both of them in the beginning. They can undo what's been done to a certain point, but the chances of Malik regaining all his memories are so slim the nearest number it could be rounded to would be zero. He would be lucky, they had said, if he can even regain a fraction of his memories.

It had never occurred to Altair, however, that Malik would not remember that they had been lovers.

In retrospect, it had been arrogant of him. They had spent the majority of their years living in a state of mutual dislike and grudging respect growing up. It is a wonder that Malik remembers them being friends at all given that had been a development that truly only came about after Malik had forgiven Altair for what happened in Solomon's Temple. He is lucky that Malik remembers Altair as a brother, as a trusted comrade-in-arms instead of the man who had caused Kadar's death and the loss of his arm (even thougn he had remembered that as well, but the important part was that it wasn't the only thing he remembered).

He is, perhaps, greedy to wish for more than that.

But there are times when he wants to bring it up, to mention Malik having a lover to see where it would go, to see if he would remember.

He refrained in the beginning because Malik's mind had been too fragile and Altair had worried he wouldn't remember and wouldn't care that he didn't. Or, worse, he may not remember and _would_ care that he didn't. Of all things, Altair didn't want Malik to feel as if such feelings are owed him, that somehow because they had been lovers in the past they must be again even if he no longer remembers or feels the same. Especially not when Altair had been the first and only person he trusted in the early days when he was the most confused.

And the longer Altair put it off, the harder it became to bring it up.

He considers trying to woo Malik again, but then remembers that there is no 'again' because they had sort of fallen together the first time around and it was the situation that had pulled them together instead of any real effort from either of them. It's not something he is sure he can replicate and it is _frustrating_ because he feels like he's falling in love all over again and Malik...Malik doesn't even _remember_. It was difficult enough to confess the first time around, it should not be more so the second time around (but, somehow, it was).

So, here they were, half a year later, and some days, Altair can almost convince himself that this is enough. This easy companionship between them is enough when he'd expected to be without any of the faces from his past until they met again in the afterlife.

But then Malik would smile at him, or he'd fall asleep on his shoulder while they're watching the television, or he'd laugh at (or with) Altair when they inevitably find themselves tripping up when dealing with what most people call conveniences (but can become less-than-benign traps to those who don't know better) and then he can't help but be greedy.

Like tonight, while they both stand side by side out on the balcony as Malik complains about the journeymen he's been asked to help train and it's all too easy to remember how it had been in Masyaf, when Malik had been dressed in the dark robes of a dai and would complain about lazy novices who thought themselves more clever their instructors.

"--are you even listening?" Malik's exasperation cuts through his thoughts. Altair makes a non-committal sound and doesn't admit that he had been distracted by the thought of how easy it would be to turn Malik's head and just kiss him.

He expects Malik to rolls his eyes, maybe even shove him in the shoulder for letting his mind wonder. What he does not expect, was the way Malik looks thoughtful, then hesitant, before finally settling on determined and Altair _knows_ that look, but the way Malik catches him behind the neck and leans in to kiss _him_ still catches Altair off-guard.

It's chaste, a brief press of lips that turns to more when Altair find enough presence of mind to wrap his arms around Malik's waist and kiss him back. They're both short of breath when they break apart and Altair asks, "How much do you remember?"

Malik looks entirely befuddled at the question and Altair is equally confused by his answer.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"How much do you remember? About us." He clarifies and suddenly Altair's not sure if he's supposed to keep his hands where they are, but Malik's hand (the flesh one) only curls at the back of his neck and doesn't let go.

"I remember nothing." Malik says carefully and Altair can practically see the gears turning in Malik's head before realization dawns, "Were we lovers?" He asks in that way that says he already knows the answer, but there is wonder in his voice as if he couldn't quite believe it.

"Yes." Altair says and wonders at all this because Malik obviously doesn't remember and yet...

"Why didn't you say anything?" Malik asks with a suspicious frown and Altair could read the doubt there. It is an ugly, insidious thing that appeared in the past when Malik did not believe Altair could look upon a cripple without pity, that appeared in the present when Malik thought the things he'd done since coming to this place meant he was no longer worthy of anything he'd had before.

"I did not want you to feel obligated to return feelings you do not remember." Because it is none of the things Malik is assuming and Altair needs him to know that.

Malik snorts, but relaxes again, his hand kneading the back of Altair's neck almost absent-mindedly. "Idiot."

"Perhaps." Altair answers with a faint smirk, then he frowns, "Malik, if you do not remember..."

"Is it so surprising that I might fall for you a second time?" He asks and there's a faint smile on his face, the same one Altair has failed to capture on paper for so very long and this time it is Altair who leans in to kiss him this time.


End file.
